


Chocolatey Goodness 09: Homeless?

by Mad Poetess (mpoetess)



Series: Chocolatey Goodness [9]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Food Sex, Humor, M/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-11-05
Updated: 2000-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-05 22:04:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mpoetess/pseuds/Mad%20Poetess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>4th of July means the basement will be filled with Harrises - what's a pair of chocolate-loving twits to do? Besides each other and a lot of emotional cowardice, whee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chocolatey Goodness 09: Homeless?

"So, how do I look? Completely seducible?" Spike asked his nonexistent reflection as he combed his gelled hair back from his face and gave the empty bathroom a wink. "It _is_ m'anniversary, after all. Wouldn't want to make the lad work too hard for it."

_You look like an utter git who can't remember that he hasn't had a reflection f'r over a century_ His subconscious groused at him.

_Also a bit like a complete poof who thinks two weeks is an anniversary…_ chimed another mental mosquito.

He grinned at both of them. "You're just jealous 'cos _I've_ got a Xander and you don't." Something about that didn't sound right, somehow. _Oh yeah. You're me. We'll just have to share, then._

He shrugged. He might be skint at the moment, but he was pretty sure he could come up with an anniversary present Xander would appreciate… All puns intended.

*****

Rupert Giles was tidying his flat. He was very good at tidying, for somebody who'd once been a bit of a rough lad (to vastly understate the case) and was now generally considered to be the sort of stuffy academic who could refurnish his flat completely in books. _New sofa? Certainly. Just let me arrange a few more volumes of Beckett's 'Libris Demonicus' here, and hey-presto._ He could, indeed, happily live amidst the clutter as long as _he_ knew where everything was…but he also possessed the useful ability to get lost in the process of returning order to apparent chaos, when necessary. A.K.A. tidying.

He dearly loved his books, his scrolls, his artifacts of arcane origin, but this last year, he'd been beginning to think they were all anybody ever saw of him. Research Man, come to save the day by… providing fascinating secondary sources to the actual superheroine. Things had changed for the better over the late spring, though. Their little group was acting more like a family again, and less like a handful of strangers thrown together every so often by the hazards of living on the Mouth of Hell. Nice, that. Though they seemed to be collecting a few more strays than usual. Anya, the ex-demon. Spike, the chipped demon. Riley, the commando psychology-major, soon to return from his trip home to Iowa.

Family, friends… what might one call Spike? An enemy-turned-associate? And of course, as Anya had so bluntly pointed out last year, there were orgasm-friends. As he placed the last volume of Beckett's overrated and somewhat plodding compendium on the shelf near the stereo, thoughts turning towards his decidedly unfamilial plans for the holiday weekend, Giles was rudely knocked out of his tidying groove by the sharp sound of a rap at the door. "Bugger…" he muttered. "Who can that be? Flight's not due in 'til nine…" Which only gave him five hours to get the place ready and worry about whether he was losing his hair… With a shake of his head, he shelved the book and moved to see who was trying to drive him insane _this_ afternoon.

"Ladies, do come in," Giles said politely, still a bit mentally jarred, as Willow Rosenberg and her friend Tara bounced through the door. _Girlfriend Tara, to be exact, and why exactly do I find that to be the sweetest thing on the planet these days? You're getting old, Rupert, when the vanilla kiddies are more out-and-about than you've been in the last decade._ The two co-ed witches proceeded apace to his sofa, where they arranged themselves into what had become a familiar position over recent weeks: red-headed Willow at the end of the sofa, ash-blonde Tara on the floor at her feet.

"Giles, you cleaned!" Willow observed, utilizing her normally-endearing talent of stating the bloody obvious. What, as if it was usually a pig-sty? All he'd done was to shelve a stack of books or ten, and tuck away most of the more obviously supernaturally-related bric-a-brac he'd had lying about. _Don't kill the children, Rupert. You love the children, remember? Just because you have plans for the evening that definitely don't involve their presence, it doesn't mean you can't be hospitable for a few hours. You won't have to chase them out with an exorcism when the time comes. _A few polite hints would do it, like 'I've got a _friend_ coming to stay, and I'd like to get a leg over tonight, unlike the _last_ night she was here, so if you lot would please clear off…' Or perhaps something a little more subtle. Deep breath.

"Yes, I cleaned. Olivia is going to be in town for the weekend, and I thought I might show her the comforts of a tidy, Spike-free flat, preferably with no demonic morticians lurking outside to steal our voices. There _are_ no demonic morticians, yes? Nothing of apocalyptic significance to report?"

Willow chewed delicately on her lower lip. "Well, we went bowling with Spike last night. That was pretty apocalypsy."

*****

"You're kidding, right, Mom? Tell me you're kidding?" Xander looked across the kitchen table at his mother, whose perplexed face he hadn't seen in at least a week, regardless of the fact that he'd been living (among other things) directly below her, all that time. He _had_ seen his Dad's, a few days ago when he'd dropped off the cash for the basement rent. A grunt and a request (well, order, actually) not to park the car in front, since his Dad had almost hit it the night before, had been about all the conversation they exchanged.

"No, Xander, why would I be kidding?" She fiddled with the glass of fruit punch in her hand, which undoubtedly was laced with mostly scentless vodka, it being about that time of the afternoon.

Shaking his head to try to see if what she'd said would make any more sense (it didn't), he was half tempted to join her. "How about because we haven't hosted the family mosh pit and burn center since I was eleven? I thought you guys swore it off after Dad and Uncle Stan decided it would be a fun idea to set up a firewalking pit in the living room?"

She goggled at him. "Alexander, that never happened!"

Sigh. "Shall I show you the scorch marks? They're under that ugly little rug in front of the TV… and I don't mean Uncle Rory's."

She'd caught him outside as he was about to head into the basement apartment, and for a minute he'd actually thought she was going to inquire into his welfare or what he'd been doing since he'd last shown his face upstairs. _Oh, working a scut job, getting laid off from said scut job today, which is at least a new and interesting one to add to the Xander Harris List O' Screw-Ups, stealing cable from you guys, screwing a vampire-- hey, would you like to meet him? I think he's home…_ But no. She'd yanked him into the kitchen to inform him that _his_ basement apartment, hellhole that it might be, was being co-opted for the long-weekend Harris free-for-all-and-booze-up politely known as the Fourth of July reunion.

This close. He was _this_ close. To what, he wasn't sure. Moving out? Cracking up? Going downstairs and crawling into Spike's arms? Sounded good right now.

"Well, I certainly don't remember it," she said. "Anyway, it's not really optional. The plans have all been made. If you visited up here a little more often, you would've known, dear."

Dear? She picked the oddest times to try to sound motherly. Like when she was accusing _him_ of not being a good son when he'd been three feet below them for a year and the most he'd gotten out of her was fruit roll-ups for Anya _because she cleans up nice and Mom thought she was somebody's rich daughter_ and raspberry fruit punch for Giles _because he's cute, and thank God he didn't accept, 'cause it probably had vodka in it, and she'd probably have come on to him, and I did not just think that Giles is cute._

"Fine. Whatever." He shoved his chair back. "I'll be out by tonight."

"You don't have to leave, Xander. Just make room for your cousins." Was she _serious_? Apparently.

"I don't think so, somehow. I outgrew sharing a bed with three…" _Four, if we count Spike, which I don't think I should bring up just now…_ "other people a few years before I actually considered paying _rent_ for sleeping in the basement. When'll they be gone?"

She returned slightly, from whatever spacey dimension she'd been hanging out in, with a little blink. "Oh. I'm not sure. Wednesday, probably. "

"Right. I'll be downstairs, packing."

As he moved towards the back door, she said in a soft voice, "Do you want any help, honey?"

Almost. Sometimes she _almost_ made it back, from wherever the mother he'd known when he was six had disappeared to. "No thanks, Mom." _Rather not choose today to introduce you to the possibly naked vampire in the basement._ But she was already gone somewhere behind her eyes again, and he grit his teeth and left, patting down his pockets for the closest thing to chocolate he could find.

*****

Willow really couldn't help giggling-- the look on Giles' face, like he'd just swallowed an entire jar of fried newt gizzards, and _then_ been informed as to what they were....

"You went...bowling? With _Spike_?" he managed to utter, walking over and straightening the books on the low shelf that backed up against the sofa.. "Er... was there a spell involved?" he added with a stern look at the two magic-workers, who replied with innocent faces.

"No, a bet. Which Spike lost to Xander, though neither of them will tell me what it was..." Willow frowned. What on earth could _Spike_ be bad enough at to lose to Xander? She'd been pondering it all night.

She'd been pondering on Xander quite a bit recently, what with her cringe-worthy experience the Monday before last, when she'd walked into Xander's basement using her own key, and noticed, like the Three Bears, that somebody was sleeping in Xander's bed. Who wasn't Xander. And wasn't female. Unless her foot-identification skills were sorely lacking. A little hemming and hawing later, she'd been pretty sure she had _Xander_ convinced she'd thought it was a girl in his bed, but that still left Willow with the questions of who, and why, and was it any of her business. Which it wasn't, unless Xander decided to tell her about it, but… she knew how _she_ had felt when she didn't think she could share was going on between her and Tara with anybody. _Plus you're a big nosy-butt, Rosenberg. Admit it._

She hadn't exactly had a chance to get Xander alone at the Scooby/pizza/Jeopardy party the next night, which was probably all for the best. Now that she'd had a good week or so away from him in which to think about it, Willow was pretty sure that keeping her mouth shut and waiting around to see what developed was the way to go. People thought _she_ embarrassed easily, but _Xander_… She'd kinda like to be able to talk to him again before the next millennium, without him turning beet red and stammering. Anyway, he'd seemed pretty up last night, though her attention had been a little divided between Xander and the world-shaking experience of having a pretty good time with _Spike_ . _Not like that kind of good time,_ she told her mind. _Eeew!_ Her mind thought she protested too much, and she wished she hadn't fed it all that Shakespeare over the years.

"Whatever the bet was, Spike's forfeit was apparently that he had to go bowling. Rented shoes and all. They just showed up at Tara's door last night while we were researching a new spell. _Really_ researching a new spell," she added, and Giles raised both hands in self defense, as if he'd never had any other thought. Well, it did tend to be Xander who cracked the 'doing spells together' jokes. Giles was a grown-up. He didn't think about sex-stuff. _Uh huh. Right. Willow here, not Buffy. Orgasm-friend coming over for the weekend remember?_

"Xander said _they_ were going bowling, whether Spike liked it or not--cue growling and snarling--and did we want to come along to witness Spike's humiliation. Since everybody's up for a little Spike-humiliation… plus the concept of seeing a bowling vampire… " She shrugged. "It was an experience not to be missed. Of course, so was the graduation of the Sunnydale High Class of 1999…"

"Yes, I must admit the mental image of Spike in bowling shoes is a little earth-shattering to me as well," Giles replied. "You didn't by any chance take photographs?"

Tara laughed. "No…I offered to bring the camera along, and Spike threatened to eat it. I _like_ my camera. So no pictures."

"I hesitate to ask, because it might give the impression that I'm somehow interested in the answer," Giles said, picking up a book bound in blue leather from the shelf and flipping though it nonchalantly, "but _can_ Spike bowl?"

Tara nodded. "He beat the pants off me, anyway. And I'm not too bad at it."

Willow ruffled her girlfriend's hair. "That's Tara's way of saying she kicks major bowling hiney. She's right though. Spike did get the highest score, which is awfully suspicious for a guy who swears the only time he's ever set foot in a bowling alley was sometime in 1978, because he'd heard a rumor that Sid Vicious hung out there. Natural vampiric ability, my butt. I still say he's a hustler. In the non-disgusting sense of the word…" she specified, recalling the peroxide-abusing vampire's smirking description of the type of money he might be able to pull in if he were the _other_ kind of hustler.

Giles shook his head in disbelief, still distractedly flipping through the book in his hands. Willow peered at the cover. "The Chamayandin Kama Sutra, an Illustrated Text, including the Previously Expunged Subversive Chapters?" she pretended to read off.

Giles coughed, slamming the book shut. "It's a demonic translation, from the Rakshasas' point of view. Lends great insight into the background and psychology of the species."

"Mmm-hmmm…" Willow replied with a sly smile.

He glanced at the cover. "Very funny," he added drily, holding the book up cover-outward, so that Willow and Tara both had a good view of the actual title: 'The Compleat Enchanter' by L. Sprague de Camp.

"It's good to know you actually have it… somewhere…" Willow grinned, gesturing at the hundreds, probably thousands, of books in Giles' living room. "Just in case I need to borrow it. Purely for Rakshasa research, of course." _Yeah, Giles doesn't think about sex…_

"Of course," Giles replied with a beleaguered sigh.

"Willow's being bad today…" Tara commented, with her own version of Willow's smile in her quiet voice, and Willow tugged gently on the blonde braid in front of her.

"So… Spike was actually…sociable? As much as Spike is capable of, at any rate?" Giles asked, apparently still unable to take in the notion.

"Well, if you consider bitching about the shoes, the lack of decent beer, Xander's clothes, Xander's driving, Xander's hair… and actually jumping on top of the ball-return and _howling_ when he won… Yeah. For Spike, I'd say that's probably black-tie behavior. Xander didn't have to drag him outside and clobber him, anyway."

"An improvement over his last social engagement, then. Perhaps Xander is actually a good influence on him. Oh, dear God, what did I just say?" Giles ran one hand through his hair. "Xander… good influence…"

"Maybe. In that he seemed to be keeping Spike in line. They were… almost buddy-like, in a Felix and Oscar kind of way," Tara offered.

Giles raised both eyebrows, obviously trying to figure out which of the two guys was supposed to be the _neat_ one of the Odd Couple.

"Well.. maybe an Oscar and Oscar kind of way. Oscar Madison and Oscar the Grouch," Willow amended. "If sharing a basement with Xander can make Spike into something resembling a human being, I'm all for it, myself."

 

*****

"That's it. Start packing," Xander commanded from the middle of the room. Then he returned the Tootsie Roll Pop to his mouth, sucking on it far more fetchingly than the cartoon owl in the advert. Which Spike had just finished pointing out, in what he thought was a rather tempting come-on, all told. So the instruction to pack his gear, while he didn't really believe Xander was serious, was a bit of a non sequiter.

Spike looked up from the finally re-folded sofa, at his flatmate, lover, and _Just stake me now..._ friend, and cocked his head. "Here I was thinking two weeks was maybe the Pizza Anniversary. Nothing big, you understand. Have to say I wasn't really expecting 'Throw the Vampire Out Into the Sunlight For Suggesting Oral Sex.'"

Blink. Blink. Patented Xander-blinks, while the mind caught up with the mouth. The mouth, pretty as it admittedly was, was luckily taken up with sucking on that sweet-on-a-stick at the moment, or there'd be Xander-babble to go with the blinks. Spike was rather getting to like Xander-babble, truth be told; some of it was honestly worth writing down. Real bumper-sticker material. _God knows the morons in this country'll buy anything as long as it comes pre-gummed and can cover up the rust-spots on their chrome…_

'There's just something about Martha Stewart that makes me forget I'm a man. How do you feel about coordinating bedsheets?' sprang to mind... He was waiting with minor dread for the day when Xander figured out that he actually _had_ been writing some of them down, in a little black notebook he kept in the inside breast pocket of his duster. That being one of the more _innocent_ lists he was keeping in said notebook.

Out popped the lolly. "No, Fangless. Not that kind of packing. Packing as in your stuff, my stuff, anything you ever want to see again or think I might. We're outta here."

Sparks of unholy glee shot through the vampire, enough to distract him from coming up with a clever retort to Xander's less-than-original insult. Out of the basement? Finally? A real flat, with his own key and no picking the lock to get in when he'd been out by himself? Like two blokes who just happened to live together, and whether they were shagging was nobody's business? No Punch and Judy abovestairs to make Spike twitch and itch to just have the ability to rip somebody's intestines out for _one_ second… Just him and Xander, someplace that was theirs…

And he realized with a shock that would have been heart-stopping, if his heart had been beating in the first place, how much he wanted that. In that hungry sucking way that Drusilla used to want things. _Another pretty bird, Spike. This time I'll feed him, I'll love him, I just need to hear him sing. Sure, until you forget again, Princess._ He'd taken to naming the bloody things 'TLC' for 'Tastes Like Chicken.' You had to do _something_ with the corpses.

It was that feeling, now. Wanting it all, and damn the consequences. He was completely loony, after all, and what good was insanity if you couldn't take advantage of it? Spike _craved_ a place that was theirs alone, and hell, he wanted to be able to claim Xander in front of all and sundry, sod Buffy the Sire Shagger. _His_ Xander, cabana-wear and all, and best not touch the boy if you want to live. She wouldn't _really_ stake Spike, would she? If she knew Xander would be pissed at her? Maybe, if they moved in together for real... He really _had_ lost it… He was picturing a little doorplate that read "Spike and Xander's Place--Go Away, We're Shagging!"

"Out of here… like…out of here?" he asked, trying not to sound _too_ deliriously happy. "Goodbye basement, hello someplace where the ghosts of cockroaches past don't shake their wee chains in the night?" _Moving! Hear that, you gits in there?_ he shouted into his own head. _Me and my shaggable arse have finally got us out of the basement!_

Snarky Voice Number One: _Twit… Boy's right, you really are full o' yourself._

Xander shook his head, dark hair flying, and gave Spike a somewhat annoyed glance. Didn't seem to be in that good of a mood now, did he. Maybe Spike could do something about that. "No, we're not moving out, for the fourteen hundredth time, so just drop it. We _are_ out of here until… oh, I'd say Wednesday, at least. It's Fourth of July weekend."

Snarky Voice Number Two: _Told yer so… told yer so.._

_Sod off…_ snarled Spike to his built-in focus-group, just as a matter of habit. Was it Spike's imagination, or was Snarky Voice Number Two starting to sound like a character from 'East Enders'? Posh it up a bit, mate, or the other lads'll laugh at you…He lazily flung one booted foot over the end of the sofa, and crossed the other over it. Let his disappointment fade to a dull irritation, and the hope that Xander at least had in mind a roof to put over their heads until Wednesday, whatever was so special about that magic date. And what was the big soddin' deal about the Fourth of July, come to it? Right. Yank Independence Day. Fireworks. Whoo-bloody-hoo. Look what this lot did with their vast independence: Chia Pets and Gilligan's Island.

"Fourth of July. And…? For entertainment every year, your mum sticks a cleaning rag in your dad's mouth, and lights him like a Molotov cocktail? Thereby blowing up the house and exposing the basement to the sunlight until you can build a new one?"

Xander grinned, finally. "You've been thinking deeply about this, haven't you." He made his way towards the closet, lollipop still in hand, and as he passed the sofa, Spike casually stuck out one foot, tripping the youth and causing him to fall conveniently into his lap. Xander's lovely clumsiness had distinct advantages when it came to looking for opportunities to feel him up...

"Yeah, in my copious free time, while I listen to the two of them bitch at each other and learn to appreciate Lizzie Borden as more than a fellow professional..." Spike answered, pulling Xander close against him and running one hand hungrily over the boy's t-shirt covered back. "By the way," he added, pointing to the sparkling shards that lay in a swept-up pile on the floor in front of the sofa, "I am, to my eternal regret, _not_ responsible for the death of disco. Nor your bloody disco ball, which took a dive all by itself, probably to get away from the sound of your dad stompin' on the floor right above it."

"Yeah. A likely story. You just don't want anybody to know that you used to dress like John Travolta before you got into the red silk and black leather phase, and you were afraid the disco ball would send you into a flashback." Xander grabbed Spike's hand and shoved the Tootsie Pop into it, twisting free of his grasp and standing up.

"Pack now, sex later. It's Fourth of July weekend, and my loving mother just informed me a whole twelve hours in advance that it's our year to host the family barbecue. "

"Wherein we barbecue your family?" Spike asked hopefully.

Xander leaned back down to thumb-flick him on the forehead, then started for the closet again. "Nice thought, but no. Wherein Harrises from all over the state converge to remind me why I should never have children. Which means either you and I get to share the basement and the bed with my cousins Terry, Jim, and Rob the Wonder Weasel, or we find another place to stay until the conquering horde crawls home and we can fumigate in here."

Xander-blinking seemed to be contagious, and Spike had a bad case of it. Right, where to start? The morons were rousting them out (well, rousting Xander out, since they thankfully had no idea _he_ was here) to make room for _more_ morons? Even though Xander was paying them rent? Where did the idiocy end? Then again, it meant the two of them had to leave the basement, so maybe keeping his mouth shut on that score was in order.

"How many licks _does_ it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop, Mr. Vampire?" Xander asked as he pulled the last container of pudding from the refrigerator, and Spike realized he'd been holding the lollipop in front of his face, staring at it blankly. He pictured himself disemboweling Harris Senior, shifted to game face, and bit clean through the thing. "One," he answered sincerely. "And these things leave something to be desired in the chocolate department. Like actual chocolate." He crunched the remaining bit of candy off the stick, then tossed the stick itself into the wastebin next to the sofa.

"There _are_ other foods in life than chocolate, believe it or not," Xander blasphemed. At a confused look from Spike, he defended himself. "Just for contrast, of course." Well, he could talk, since he was gleefully devouring what just might be the last bit of real chocolate in the place, licking the spoon in a manner obviously designed to make Spike fall upon him and ravish him until he relinquished the last of the chocolate. Not that Spike intended to stop the ravishment at that point. He _was_ evil, after all. _Not that we're complainin'..._ someone interjected from his subconscious, _but you're more than usually horny today, you do realize that, right?_

Sod off, again. Of course he was more than usually horny. He'd eaten the other four cups of pudding, three bowls of Count Chocula, the third with actual milk, and the rest of the hot fudge Xander had bought for his clever little Spike Sundae. Then he'd had to pace the floor and listen to the Bickersons upstairs, as they discussed each other's ancestry at a volume that would put most heavy-metal bands to shame. Shag or kill, and since he couldn't kill, and his beautiful boy was right here just begging to be shagged...

"Food. Right. Sure. There's...virgin blood, and really _really_ rare chopped liver, which is almost as good as the real thing. Hmm…spiders are pretty good, deep fried an' dipped in HP sauce… " He was playing with Xander, of course, as they both knew he liked human food, chocolate or otherwise, but it was _fun_ to watch the boy squirm. "Oh, and a nice curry--the sort that burns the hairs off the inside of your nose and just keeps gettin' better on the way down…"

"Okay, eew on all counts. …"

"Even the curry?"

"Especially the curry. The curry frightens Xander. Xander runs from the curry."

"Probably," Spike grinned. "Luckily I'm immune to that sort of thing. Well…there's always frozen grapes on a string." He let that image filter through Xander's brain for a moment, smiling innocently. Well, as innocently as a vampire in full demon-face can manage.

"Okay, obviously another 'let's laugh smarmily at Xander' moment approacheth, but why would you want to eat frozen grapes on a _string_ ?'

Snicker. "You don't eat 'em."

*****

Willow and Tara were each tucking into a plate of chocolate chip cookies (store-bought, because Giles wasn't about to muck about in the kitchen he'd just cleaned), and Giles was honestly afraid Olivia would _be_ there before the two girls got around to telling him why they'd stopped in. Courtesy would be his downfall, in the end. Not demons, not vampires, not male-pattern baldness, but the unfailing compunction to brew a pot of tea for every wayward soul who showed up at his door.

Speaking of which, as if on cue, there was a knock. A bloody rap-tap-tapping at his chamber door.

"Hey, Giles. Just wanted to stop in and say bye. Well… say bye, and wait for Mom to pick me up here?" Buffy, a large carry-bag over her shoulder, insinuated herself through the door with a bright smile and a sheepish shrug. "Oh, hey guys. Looks like I get to wave bye-bye to everybody."

"No Xander," Willow said, shaking her head. "Though if you wait around long enough, he'll probably show. This seems to be one of those Scooby-magnet afternoons. "

_Please God, no…_ Giles groaned mentally. Not that he'd mind seeing Xander, but they all needed to _get out of his house_ before he ended up politely asking Olivia if she'd like to shag in the bathroom. _Are we perhaps a trifle over-agitated here, Rupert?_ he thought, calming himself. "Tea, anyone?"

"No thanks. I'm trying to quit," Buffy replied, waving him off. She had a list of tea-jokes at the ready, and he'd just contributed another opportunity. Well, if it kept her happy... He lived to serve.

"If Xander shows up before Mom does, that'd be great. She's gonna drive me to Santa Barbara when she finishes up at the gallery, and then I'll come back with Riley on Wednesday." The Slayer's eyes crinkled at the mention of her boyfriend, who had been gone since shortly after his debriefing and discharge from what was supposedly left of the Initiative.

"Ooh, illicit long weekend in mysterious faraway place with strange man…" Willow teased.

Buffy nodded. "Except for the faraway place, and the strange man, and the illicit parts. Plain old martial arts seminar in nearby Santa Barbara with the most un-strangest-man I've ever dated."

"Yuck. Working vacation," Willow sympathized.

Giles wondered idly when had been the last time _any_ of them had a non-working holiday. Something supernatural always seemed to arise. Thanksgiving, for instance, with Spike attending the festivities in bondage (and if he enjoyed tying up the vampire just a little bit too much, it was his own business), attacking Indian spirits, Angel prowling about, and poor Xander with a bad case of everything you could have a bad case of...

"But still, hotel room in non-mysterious nearby place with boyfriend you haven't seen in a month… Don't tell me there won't be _any_ illicitness…" added the redhead.

Buffy grinned. "Well…. Maybe, in between the tai chi and the crane technique and the steam room and the zen meditatation… there might be time for some illicitness. My lips are sealed."

_If only the door were…_ Giles thought. Ah well.

"I'll have some tea," Tara said, bobbing her head up from where she'd been looking at the blue-bound novel that most definitely _wasn't_ the Chamayandin Kama Sutra.

_Of course you will…_ came the mental sigh, and Giles retreated to the kitchen.

 

*****

Frozen grapes. On a string. That you don't eat. And after a minute of puzzling that out, Xander decided there were some drawbacks to having a vivid imagination.

"Eew." And Spike was chuckling at him, of course. More Spike kinky stuff that, sooner or later, he'd be roped into trying, and, sadly, probably enjoying. _Give it to Xander… he won't try it, he hates everything. Hey look! He likes it! Xander really likes it!_ And granted, some of that stuff he might've liked, in theory, before he started boinking the undead, but Xander placed full blame for corrupting him squarely on those lickable white-chocolate shoulders of Spike's. White-chocolate. Which wasn't _really_ chocolate, but how would it look melted and dribbled on his own somewhat tan skin, with good old dark chocolate syrup poured over Spike, so they could make a neat little yin-yang symbol... (And Spike would be stuck licking off the white chocolate, of course, bwah-ha-ha...)

There were some benefits, besides the obvious, to doing whatever he was doing with Spike, and one of them was that in a pinch, he could always point to the evil walking corpse and say it was all Spike's fault. Granted, that would only work once, since it would sort of clue the Scoobs in on the whole Spike/Xander Summer Sex Farce, and then he'd be dragged away in a straitjacket, and Spike would be in a world of hurt. _And we'll try to avoid considering the fact that I don't want Spike to be in a world of hurt, or examining just why that might be._

"Well, it's really a bit of a vampire trick, with the grapes, luv. They'd thaw in a human, and then you'd have a handful of fishing line and an arseful..."

"Shut up. Eew."

More chuckling. "They do make a reasonable substitute for you lot, though..."

"And no, and eew, and thank you for playing, please try again later, because I know you will anyway," Xander riposted through clenched teeth. Spike would win eventually, because he was an evil, seductive bastard, but he didn't have to know that in advance. "And _eew_, just in case you missed the first three."

He knew Spike was trying to distract him from the task at hand. _No! I will not be swayed from my appointed rounds! Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor hot demon guy in pornographically tight jeans lounging on my couch who wants to do wonderfully dirty things to me that Buffy would so stake him for.. NO! I will be good! I will pack. I will clean. I will not look at the vampire.._ Xander began looking around for dirty clothes to throw in the washer, and realized with a shock that there weren't any. Most of his wardrobe was folded neatly on top of the dryer.

_Fine, trash to bag up, then… gotta get it out of here before the Moron Patrol shows up._ Nothing, except four neatly tied black Hefty bags lined up in the stairwell that led to the outside of the house, and a cheap blue canvas tarp bundled up to match them, even tied off with a twist tie. _Voluntary cleaning…Help! Freakyness!_ Horrified thoughts of a possessed Spike tumbling through his mind, he turned back to the sexy vampire on the couch, who grinned somewhat sheepishly, but still sexily, at him. _Damn! He got me. Sneaky little shit._

"Got bored, didn't I. Don't think this means I'm housetrained, or anything."

Xander shook his head, more in wonder than in answer to Spike's comment. He dragged his eyes away from Spike to glance at the little kitchen area, and noticed with a start that the dishes were done too, stacked next to the microwave. Aside from shoving things into bags and stacking them in the car, that was half of what he'd planned to do before it got dark. _Gracious, what will we do with all that free time? Take me, corrupt me, I'm yours, baby._ Bad Xander. Pack the clothes. Clean up the poor dead disco ball. Decide whether you're ever going to eat anything again. Sex later. Then something Spike had said as he came down the stairs finally filtered into his distracted brain.

"Two weeks?" he asked, walking back over to the couch, shoving Spike's feet off the arm, and perching there himself. "Really?"

"To the day," Spike nodded. "Not to the actual _hour_, mind you. It was eleven o'clock or so when you stumbled your Snoopy-boxered backside into the kitchen and decided you couldn't resist my oh-so-kissable lips."

Xander gave Spike an incredulous stare. _Ah, vampire bullshit. Pure and sweet, and reliable as my old buddy chocolate. And I'm babbling again, because it's been two weeks since this guy kissed me and I completely lost my mind. Two weeks. Two episodes of 'Survivor.' A third of the time it takes for a set of 'Babylon 5' commemorative plates to arrive in the mail, if you're lucky. Oh dear God, if you're listening, don't let Spike be the one to open those. Now is not the time for him to find out I'm an SF geek. Two weeks? Really?_ He found himself wishing for several gallons of chocolate. The easily digestible kind, that went straight into your system, preferably passing the tongue first, but not absolutely necessary. Say…Twix. Kit-Kat. Three pounds of M&amp;M's. Two weeks? Bibble.

"As I remember it…" he finally replied, summoning up a brain cell from the depths of his skull, and working it for all it was worth, lest he never locate another one, "…you were being gross and disgusting as usual, and when I tried to take away _my_ Count Chocula, you came over and stuck your gross, disgusting tongue down my throat."

"Which you hated so much you immediately knocked me on my gross, disgusting arse, dragged me out the door, and left me tied up outside to wait for the sun to rise," Spike agreed sardonically. "Of course, _I_ choose to remember the version where you spent the day wasting time with your mates, came home, knocked me down the stairs, spread peanut butter in my hair, and then shagged me stupid." He grinned a big vampire grin, then his face slid into its handsome human shape. Oh, _that_ was an improvement. Xander was _completely_ un-horny now. Really.

"I didn't _mean_ to knock you down the stairs, " Xander said slowly. "Of course, I thought you were trying to…" Ping! Distraction, and Xander really wished he didn't have a twenty-two track mind that kept skipping to another song, like a scratched-up CD.

"Shagged you stupid? Really?" Goofy grin. Xander Harris shagged somebody stupid. Not that there hadn't been times with Anya where he suspected he might've come close, but this was…a hundred and twenty-six year old vampire, or whatever age Spike was claiming these days. _Right, because the eleven hundred year old ex-demon had no experience…_ Okay, so he wasn't making a lot of sense. Still, it was _Spike_. The Big Bad had just admitted that… What _had_ he admitted? That he liked it? That Xander Harris was a good lover? Whoo-freakin'-hoo.

"Dozy as a drunken mule," Spike replied, putting his hands behind his head and looking a bit like he was re-living the experience. "And it actually takes a hell of a lot to get a mule drunk. "

Meaning at some point he'd tried. Xander was living with _Ahem? Making wild passionate monkey love with?_ a dead guy who got farm animals drunk and then probably did disgusting things to them. Lovely. Still...shagged Spike stupid. Goofy grin might last a while, images of drunken mules in his head or not. Say, until Hell froze over...

"Almost as much as it does to get Angelus shitfaced…" Spike added thoughtfully. "Thought about gettin' Soulboy snockered, just to see if he's turned lightweight now, but the opportunity ain't arisen."

Xander choke-laughed, _still_ grinning. "And if the opportunity arises, I volunteer to be your designated driver, 'cause I wanna _see_ you two drunk together. Actually, I wanna _film_ you two drunk together and sell it to 'America's Funniest Blasted Vampires.' " _Angel_ drunk? _I must brood now. No, I'm plastered, so instead I'll do the Macarena. But I'm still Angel. So I must brood. Macarena. Brood. Macarena. Wait, is that a Ricky Martin song?_ Snerk. And even if he ended up puking in the gutter, Angel's hair would still be sober.

"I'll hold you to that…" threatened Spike. Sure. Xander trembled in his non-existent boots. Like _that_ was ever gonna happen.

"Two weeks, huh?" Xander said again. Fuck packing. Well, fuck, then packing. Two weeks of complete insanity deserved some kind of recognition, after all. Plus there was the opportunity to see if he could shag Spike stupid _again_. "I suppose you think some kind of celebratory sex is in order," he added, tapping his fingers on the toes of Spike's dusty black Doc Martens, which had somehow made their way back up onto the sofa, though not to the arm on which he was currently sitting.

"Crossed my mind..." came the so-not-casual answer. "Celebratory sex, ruin the basement for your relatives sex, makes no never-mind to me. Call it making sweet lur-ur-ur-urrrve, if you like..."

Bit of a twinkle in the eyes, under the quirked scarred eyebrow. Spike was up to something. Spike was _always_ up to something. Ooh, scary vampire. _Evil thoughts in the undead head, Xander...beware. This is the guy that came up with frozen grapes on a... Bad thought. Go away. _If he didn't know better, Xander would be convinced that Spike had this in mind all day… _Duh-duh-duh-duh…_ sang the cynical chorus in his head, and he grinned. Bad Spike. Evil Spike. _His_ Spike.

*****

"So..." said Buffy, her feet propped up on the coffee table because she knew Giles couldn't see her from the kitchen. "You guys partying here for a reason?"

Willow shifted her eyes. "Seems like everybody's got plans for the weekend. You're going off to meet Riley, Giles has Olivia coming over, and we've got a kind of anniversary thing planned. There's a place out in the woods that's a... kind of natural safehouse. Like a good-intentions getaway cottage, if you bring your own cottage: nothing that intends to do harm can get into this little circle of trees. We thought it would be a great place to camp out and try a few spells that need total concentration..."

"And just be alone together, out in the woods. Cool. Granted, I'd rather be alone together somewhere with air conditioning and free HBO, but I get the idea," Buffy nodded. "Which doesn't answer the question, of course."

Giles returned from the kitchen with a teapot on a tray, all the fixin's, and four cups. "Just in case you change your mind..." he said sincerely to Buffy, and she wrinkled her nose at him as she guiltily took her feet off the coffee table to make room for the tray of Brit-juice. She didn't hate tea or anything, but it was fun to have something she could unfailingly tease him about.

Willow looked a bit guilty herself, as she poured herself a cup of tea, adding sugar and cream. "Um... We were kind of hoping somebody could watch the kids. Amy and Miss Kitty, that is. Giles, obviously we didn't know you had plans...do you think... No, that's not fair. Never mind."

That was all they wanted? Giles to watch a rat in a cage and a two month old kitten? They weren't moving in? _Praise be to every vaguely well-intentioned god who's listening,_ the ex-Watcher thought, sending it in the general direction of Heaven.

"I think I have room for two more guests, considering their relative size," Giles said with a smile. "Assuming Ms. Madison and the kitten don't stage Ragnarok in the middle of my living room, I doubt they'll do much to ruin the weekend."

He'd just have to keep his mouth shut to Olivia about the fact that the little brown rat was actually a seventeen year old witch under a pesky spell... Or... nineteen, now, he supposed. If there was anything that would, well, freak Olivia out, more than having discovered the fact that ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties were real, it would be sharing a flat with one for the weekend... again. Giles hadn't been sure she would accept the invitation in the first place, as disturbed as she'd been by the events of her last visit. Having spent quality time with Spike in full vampire face, who'd still managed to be a complete tosser even with no voice, probably hadn't improved matters, either.

"Thanks, Giles. You're a big Watchery lifesaver. The pineapple kind," Willow added, pouring a cup of tea for Tara.

"Tea party at Giles. Wonder what Xander's doing that could possibly compare to the endless thrills we've got going _here_." Buffy joked with a wink.

"Bowling with Spike, possibly?" Giles commented drily, wondering what Buffy had said that could've put that odd look on Willow's face.

"Say what?" Oh, lovely. Slayer-spit and tea all over his just-cleaned sofa.

 

*****

"So…" Xander asked as he stretched out atop Spike on the sofa. "Is this supposed to be tender Sarah MacLachlan luuurve we're making, or…"

"You wanna start buildin' a mystery, go right ahead, long as you do it with a bit more rhythm than _that_ chit."

"Right. Rhythm method. Wondered what we were using for contraception," his human lover chuckled, and brought his lips down to Spike's. They kissed, slow and warm, exploring each other at a fraction of the pace they'd used that first starving night. This was a different kind of hunger. Spike's blunt fingers, with their chipped black polish, disappeared into Xander's dark hair, and felt the clean, cool softness of it, twisting it slowly into the sort of knots that superstitious sailors once used to tie up the wind. As the weight of Xander's body made him warmer than the heat outside could've done, if he'd been stupid enough to walk out into the sunlight, Spike tried to pick a language.

Xander had popped the evil idea into the pressure cooker of Spike's brain, and it had just come to a boil now, much like Spike himself was doing. "How many demon languages _do_ you speak?" while the boy was kneading his knuckles into Spike's back, and Spike really hadn't had anything coherent to say on the subject at the time. Try to tell him a lovely little story about why you should never try to shag something whose anatomy you aren't familiar with, and he has to interrupt with questions about why a bit of rough like Spike can talk to half the demons and slimy gits he comes across. He had a knack, that's all. You met up with something, it was nice to know whether it was offering you its daughter as a bed warmer, or offering you _to_ its daughter as an appetizer. Or whether that thing in the corner with the pink bow in its hair was really its _daughter_ at all.

Xander's warm breath on his ear, and Spike ran his hands down the surprisingly broad back, touching corded muscles through the thin fabric of the faded t-shirt. _Not a kid,_ he had to remind himself every so often, _…no matter how much younger he is than you. A man. Just learning how to be one, but a man._ So...the plan. Just pick a language, any old. Something pretty, and bloody obscure, and he could say whatever he pleased, including mushy luuurrrve stuff, and Xander wouldn't have a clue. Torosch? Nah. Had to talk with your fingers, too, for that one, and Spike's fingers were busy. He reached down to tug at Xander's shirt, and Xander lifted his arms to help.

Pretty. Pretty boy, with the rotten grin and the brown nipples that were even now peaking, without the slightest touch from Spike. What might they do if a rough, cool tongue were to swipe across each one, if lips not otherwise engaged were to suck and tease? Oh… that. They'd do that. Pretty. Ifrit? No. Nicely poetic, but speak the language of that sort of demon and if you weren't careful, you found yourself working a bit of unintentional mojo. Not best recommended for sex talk.

Xander sat up to pull Spike's own shirt off, spelling things with his fingers on Spike's chest. All the thousands of ways you can be touched _Including in the head, old son…_, and Spike loved them all. Soft, hard, as long as it came from the hands of someone he loved, he'd never cared. Just enjoyed it. Lived for it. Died for. Mmm… that one. Not a demon language after all, but fey. _How appropriate..._ laughed Snarky Voice Number Two, who'd poshed up his accent, as requested.

"Tellis scenara, te quisen, glithe…" he whispered. Pretty boy. You're a wonder, you are.

"Mmm? Spike? What'd you just say?" Xander paused in his unbuckling of Spike's belt, which wasn't fair at all.

"Hush. S'a poem, isn't it," he lied. Or maybe it was. "Cel ce stis scironin, ghilones ce scila." Got me caged behind your eyes, you do., and don't you dare let me go. _Ooh, nice, if a bit over-lyrical._ Spike didn't _remember_ having eaten Robert Browning.

"Ahestele." My own. And the other word, so close in English, and light-years away in meaning: "Istiriss..." Mine. A claim that would send Xander running, if he knew what it meant, and it was still hard for Spike to tone down the possessive growl of a vampire in his prime. _Mine_.

"Pretty…" Xander said, unlacing Spike's boots, pulling them off. Dropping them into the middle of the shards of the disco ball, and Spike could give a toss at this point, because Xander was tracing a finger down the sole of his left foot, and it wasn't nice to tickle your lover when he was trying to be serious. "What language is that? What's it mean?"

"Glaistig, and it… don't translate very well. All about the great epic journey to rescue the hero's aged grandmum from unsavory sock-merchants. Somethin' like that. But like y'said, it's pretty, so shut up, pet." Xander was rubbing his bare feet now, and it didn't tickle at all, just sent warm streaks of pleasure up Spike's calves. He'd never been specifically turned on by his own feet before, but Xander was doing a good job of changing that.

"Okay. Quote on, MacSpike…" Xander answered, and then busied his own mouth with tugging gently at the zipper on Spike's jeans, as Spike pulled his own version of Xander-babble, whispering whatever silly endearments came into his head. He lifted his hips as Xander half-stood to pull the jeans completely off. The younger man was back in a fraction of a second, warm and heavy on him, softly stroking Spike's straining cock to full hardness, before letting go and leaning down to nuzzle the skin of his inner thigh. Concentration was getting difficult to hold onto, unlike Xander.

"Ghelasin, sis ne s'des, clestehel." Hate your clothes, but getting you out of 'em's half the fun. Which actually translated to 'I like not your raiment, but removing it from your body gives me spasms of ecstasy.' All of which he could've said in English, but it did lend verisimilitude to the 'poem' story.

Xander lost his own clothes somewhere between Spike realizing that it was impossible to talk Glaistig _without_ sounding like Robert bloody Browning, and the follow-up that if there was anything else he had to say, he'd better spit it out fast, before he got caught up in other things. Multi-tasking, such a lovely techno-age phrase to describe Spike's nineteenth century schizoid brain, was one thing. Making love to Xander Harris was something completely different. A living work of beauty, complete with the fluffy-puppy silliness on his face that made it all worthwhile. _God, I love you, boy. I'm allowed to say that, right, in my head? Anybody want to bitch at me for that? No. Good._

Grabbing Xander by the shoulders, Spike looked straight into the eyes that he'd once thought were black, before he'd seen the gold come out to play, before he'd seen them in the light. "You really are beautiful, in case y'didn't know." And that had come out in English, which was fine, because Xander gave him a surprised smile that took his nonexistent breath away. It hurt, in a way Spike couldn't even define, to know that was all it took to make Xander happy, which meant nobody'd even been giving him that much. What did they ever do to deserve him, the twits upstairs? _Right, I'm tellin' you this now, and listen. Maybe you'll understand. Please understand. Please don't. I don't bloody know anymore._

"Lideleles ne dol celeren bei, dehel." With you, it's been like coming home. It was that easy, to say it in a language Xander would never learn. A language that, thank the bloody stuck-up water fairies, didn't have a written version. That easy to lose himself in Xander and not risk the consequences. Except the ones in his own evil little heart, right? "Celisi ne." I love you.

He'd said it, and he didn't burst into ashes... Amazing. Maybe someday he'd risk the English after all. After a couple of hundred bottles of whiskey and a brain transplant. _Tell him sooner than that, you great bleached fool… _said the quiet voice, the one he kept pretending wasn't there, and he was more frightened of that one than all the rest put together.

He didn't burst into ash, no. Bursting into _flame_, though... Those last words, the truth and the lie that hid them, freed the hunger in the vampire, and he couldn't see anything but dark eyes that took in everything and understood Xander-only-knew what. He buried his mouth in the hollow of Xander's throat, and took nothing but warmth and pounding pulse into himself through the unbroken skin, and it was all he needed.

*****

Whatever Spike was saying, it was pouring itself into Xander's ears and running through his body like water. The smoothness in that usually rough English voice as it whispered liquid syllables, like the little sounds of a creek, far away, flowing over round rocks. At the end, though, it was more like the ocean, a big fucking wave coming down on you from out of nowhere, tossing you until you didn't know up from down, and you were drinking salt water until it burned your throat and nose and eyes, and you felt like your heart would explode. _Sock-merchants, my ass…_ Xander thought in turned-on irritation.

_He's fucking laughing at me in there._ This was one little game Spike wouldn't out-stubborn him at. Xander would find out what Spike had really said, if he had to chase it down through every damn book in Giles' collection. Jerk. Beautiful, sexy jerk. If his mind didn't know what it was that Spike was saying, his body did. Spike's lips at his throat had given him an insane compulsion to be drained dry, not of blood, but of this aching hunger in his own body, to be replaced with Spike's, as if they could create a circuit of desire. The vampire was sucking hungrily enough at Xander's shoulder now, biting lightly, and it felt _so_ damn good. Xander sent a quick ironic thanks to the folks at the Initiative, for being stupid enough to base Spike's chip on _intent_... _Rest in peace, Maggie, 'cause he intends to drive me out of my mind with pleasure, not that it's a very long trip, and oh... bite there, yeah._

"Harder, Spike. Please." Spike bit down, and the waves of sensation that Spike's human teeth sent through Xander's body were like nothing he'd felt before. A shadow of the first time Spike had touched his throat. Fear and pain and the knowledge beyond it that there was nothing to fear, and nothing hurt, there was just this delicious fire in his nerves, in his groin, in his head.

Xander tossed his head back, and Spike withdrew his teeth, licking the bite marks, before moving his mouth down to the nipple he'd last teased with just his lips and tongue. Hard and pebbled, burning before the blunt teeth even scraped it, and positively ignited when Spike bit down, soft and sure, and Xander's body spasmed on top of Spike's, grinding their skin together, their hips, thighs, cocks. To think he'd never known what it was to want a man, before this, beyond a few looks, dreams, things he hadn't even let himself examine. To feel himself held by strong arms, to smell sweat and the juices that were less innocent than sweat, but just as natural. Spike's arms, possessive and mind-bogglingly gentle at the same time. If his mind were in any condition to boggle…

The other nipple was feeling neglected, and Spike's mouth moved there as if the two body parts were magnetically attracted. That circuit of desire again, running out of Xander, into Spike's mouth, and back. Licking and sucking again until Xander sunk his fingers into Spike's shoulders, scratching helplessly at the pale skin. _Bite, already. You're supposed to be a vampire, bite me!_ He wanted the freezing fire, needed it to keep him sane, or insane, or... Thought, here, lonely though it might be: if it was doing this to Xander, what might it do…

Xander pushed Spike's face away from his protesting chest, claiming that evil red mouth with his own. He plunged his tongue deep inside, testing it against Spike's, tasting his own flavor there. Teased the back of the palate for a moment, then purposely ran his fingernails sharply down Spike's chest, enough to draw blood. Enough to bring out the vampire face behind the supermodel's, the eyes gold pools beneath the shadowed folds. His tongue still in that mouth, surrounded by sharp fangs, Xander deliberately drew it back, cutting it. Just a scratch, just enough for blood to well, a drop or two, in Spike's mouth. He leaned into the pain as Spike sucked at his tongue. Didn't dare pull away if he ever wanted to talk again, anyway, but he didn't want to, not...yet.

Spike opened his mouth wide, and Xander finally pulled his tongue out, taking the hint. With his lover more aroused than ever at the taste of blood in his mouth, with Spike's cock pressing hard against his own groin, the human ducked his head to the vampire's throat. The reverse of a thousand cheesy movies and a couple of really hot ones, and he bit. Just a tiny fold of skin, but a hard bite. Spike cried out, a strange high animal sound, and God knew what Xander's mother heard upstairs. Animal. Right, he'd tell her he got a cat. A big purry yellow cat with sharp teeth. _Careful, he bites, but so do I._

Xander had drawn blood, and he tasted it. Not like what Spike drank heated from the microwave, not like the taste of his own coppery blood on his scratched tongue. This was something more, something supernatural, and he could feel power in it, thrumming along his taste buds. He sucked at it, and Spike ran his hands frantically up and down Xander's back, cupping his ass and squeezing hard. Too soon, Spike let go, reached between them and pushed him away. Not too far away, and Xander let his head spin for a second or two as he sucked air into his aching lungs.

"No more, pet..." Spike purred out in a rich, low voice. How could he not be gasping? Because he didn't have to breathe? "I want to be _in_ you." It was so much more than a request to pull back on the foreplay before there wasn't any main event. So much more than even Spike being inside his body, which he needed with a burning ferocity now.

"You are," he answered simply, before he knew what he was doing. Whatever that meant.

Spike's eyes were hooded, gleaming, as the vampire shook his head, let it fall back against the sofa cushion, like it was all more than he could take. "Yeah." That was all he said, and what Spike meant was anybody's guess, too. In a second, Spike sat back up and lowered his head forward again, sucking and biting on Xander's other nipple, the one that had screamed for attention. Biting, so very gently, with _those_ teeth--and Xander was gone in the heat again, moaning, twisting.

"Fangless, yeah?" Spike growled into his skin, and the echo was like a buzz-saw vibrating its way through him. He grabbed Spike's head, touching hair laid flat by gel, not too sticky, not too slick under his fingers. Lowered his own head down, kissing the top of Spike's, rubbing his face against that bright, smooth hair as streaks of thundershower-in-July electricity zapped their way around his body. Hands on his back, branding fingerprints into him. Did vampires still have fingerprints? Ask again in the morning when the bruises come up.

"Nooo... big fangs. Good fangs. Still the Big Bad." Babble, babble...

Then there was Spike trying to sit up, to push him back, arrange himself, but Xander didn't want that, this time. Not that bottoming from the top thing that Spike had tried on him a few nights ago, though it had seemed like a good idea when he'd laid himself down on top of Spike to begin with. He didn't want control, now; he was too lost in it, lost in Spike. He didn't even think he could handle it if Spike were to give him play-by-play instructions, though he could half hear it in his head. _First you lower yourself down, luv, just like that..._

No. Not today. He wanted to _be_ shagged stupid, and hard. "No room," he whispered. No room on the couch, ha ha. Too bad. No room. Like the Mad Hatter's tea party, and why Disney movies in his head now? He scrambled off Spike, and hauled him up, hands around his lover's waist. Lover. Still felt good to think, and he almost wanted to say it out loud. And why not? They were, right?

"Lover..." he whispered, and Spike curled his lips up around those teeth, in a goofy game-face smile. And he wondered why Xander wasn't afraid of that face? Really? Spike looked like a shell-shocked Gomer Pyle in game face, which was just too cute for words, and totally unsafe to say if Xander didn't want to get in serious trouble. Chase-you-around-the-room-with-a-helm-axe trouble, as opposed to come-here-and-bend-over-my-knee-you-bad-boy trouble. Not to say that game-face wasn't sexy... _Goofy can be sexy. Really sexy. Hey, I'm goofy. Does that mean I'm..._ Brain-dead, is what it meant. They stood, facing each other, in the middle of the room. Burying themselves in each other's mouths again. Spike just a little shorter, just a little, so that Xander had to lower his head a tiny bit to kiss. He licked Spike's nose, and was rewarded with a human smile, the vampire face dissolving.

Breaking their embrace almost reluctantly, Xander moved to the end of the couch, and stretched himself forward over the arm. Waiting. Wanting. A million seconds later, Spike was behind him, parting his cheeks with gentle hands, stroking them, leaning down to kiss the skin. Nibbling at a tender piece of flesh, and Xander pushed himself forward, spreading his legs as wide as he could, lifting his backside higher. Spike's face pressed between his legs, pressed _there_, long tongue reaching in to softly touch the places in between, and _that_ was what it felt like? Which was so good that Xander had a brief flash of clarity, wondering why on earth he'd never known before how much he liked having his ass played with. Worshipped, almost, and that was the insane thought that flipped him back into safe, familiar psychotic bliss.

With a last lick, Spike's tongue disappeared, and there was firm coolness at Xander's entrance. That was why the eternity of waiting, so Spike could get the fucking lube, right. Why was it guys got the raw end of the deal, and didn't get the built-in version? Something about this not being natural? Pffft. Slick finger pushing into him, and he pushed back against it, taking it in, Spike inside him. Waiting for the touch at the magic little gland that had become his new best friend (his _other_ new best friend) and there it was, spark, flicker and flame. Oh... that made up for a couple million _years_ of waiting for lube. Poor girls. Multiple orgasms couldn't possibly compare.

Spike was moving that finger in and out, finally adding another. And… this time another. Doing things with them, spreading Xander open, rubbing the skin inside him, knocking against that place that sent him screamward, then caressing it, torturing him, and he wanted more of it, so much more. Could Spike get his whole hand in there, and not set off the chip? Suddenly it seemed like a question inquiring mindlessness wanted to know, but it wasn't to be answered this time, since he couldn't even speak to voice it if he knew how. Scrabbling at the sofa cushions beneath his hands, Xander felt his knees weaken, but he wasn't going anywhere, poured over the arm of the couch like a chocolate bar melted in the sun. Spike was right behind him, to stop him from falling, anyway, even if it was just possibly too late for that one.

Spike shook his head to clear the ruddy glow-bees that seemed to be swimming around his eyes, but it didn't do any good. Xander, spread and waiting for him, then his fingers moving inside, and they'd never been so _warm_. No place he hadn't been before, but he honestly wanted to crawl inside the human body below him, this time. What did it mean, that he already was? More Xander-babble? Pretty, pretty. He pulled his fingers out, Xander's body not wanting to let go of them, and slicked down his cock with lube, not daring to stroke himself too much in the process, in case he never even made it back inside. Wouldn't exactly be cricket, would it? He did make it there, though, nudging the head up against warm skin, and pushing in, burying himself in the tight channel. Slamming up against that lovely backside, feeling Xander arch into it, up on the balls of his feet. Warm thighs, little hairs brushing the skin on Spike's own when they touched. Every contact, every sound, every moan or growl or whimper, whether it came out of his own mouth or not...he couldn't even tell anymore.

He ran his hands down Xander's sides, touching a living contradiction. Skin smooth as a fresh peach outside, muscle hiding hard beneath it. Spike hard inside too, and really unable to do more than stop himself from actually _hurting_ Xander by pounding him into unconsciousness. Might be worth the headache, at that, but he'd rather have Xander _moving_ against him, just like, yeah, _that_. Spike slowed himself down, just enough. Just barely. Soon the tightness was building to pressure at an impossible acceleration, like your foot tapping on that pedal and it's suddenly on the floor, and sod the idiots in the passing lane, you're out of there. Letting go, and feeling like it'll last forever, and if you're immortal, maybe it will, philo-bleedin-sophically, but on a physical level, it has to end sometime, in a rush of fluid and joy, if it's ever going to happen again. It did, shooting from him in a mad river, as he whispered in Glaistig again, those same final, self-damning words. He fell forward, spent, against Xander, who pushed back at him for a moment before grinding against the sofa arm and letting go himself, with a choked sigh.

*****

Nestled together in the corner of the sofa, they contemplated the room. Right. Packing. Moving was pretty much a challenge that Xander wasn't really up to at the moment. Moving an inch, that is, forget about moving out for the weekend. He leaned back against Spike, who propped his chin on top of Xander's head.

"Not exactly Sarah MacLachlan," Xander commented, brain slowly returning to semi-functioning status. "Maybe Barry White."

"And what's wrong with Sid Vicious?" Spike asked, stretching. Like he might actually get up, or something.

_Uh-uh. Not happening in the near future, buddy. You took the pillow-position, you can cope and deal._ Xander reached back and grabbed Spike's arms, pulling them around him. Spike didn't complain, tickling Xander's stomach briefly before resting wonderfully cool hands on Xander's chest, holding him easily.

"Um... Sid's dead, for one thing. Tends to put a crimp in your lifestyle," Xander replied. To forestall the inevitable vampire joke, he added, "Yeah, I know. So are you, and you're still a party animal. Okay, how about he can't sing?"

"Smack you for that, but you'd like it too much. What do you know from singing? That crap they play at the Bronze?" Pouty vampire. Oops. A pouty vampire is not necessarily a cooperative vampire, and they really did need to pack. Plus Spike would have to be on reasonably good behavior this weekend.

_Bad move, insulting his idol, Xander. But honestly, punk rock?_ Spike had hunted up a radio station that played it a few days ago, and Xander had been about to run screaming from the room. Most pop, indie, even country if he was in the right mood, he could handle, but 'I'm a lazy sod' ? Stoned guy yelling into the microphone? That was music? Gak.

"Fine. He's the Luciano Pavarotti of punk. I'm just saying that wasn't Sid Vicious sex. Or wild passionate Sid Vicious lur-ur-ur-urve. No heroin, for one thing."

Spike snorted. "Don't need it, with you. You're doped up enough as it is."

 

*****

As Willow retold the story of 'Bowling With Spike And Xander', available at your local library or bookstore, or order online at Amazon.com, for the second time, Tara watched in mixed amusement and frustration. Amusement because Willow had turned it into a sort of stand-up comedy routine in order to get maximum reaction out of the flabbergasted Slayer, and frustration because, honestly, was she the _only_ one in the room who wasn't blithely ignoring the obvious? Spike and Xander at the research party last week, oh-so-carefully not touching each other? Spike your typical territorial animal defending what was his against a bewildered Anya? The dramatic exit with Xander's fingers in his hair, the sheepish re-entry and mind-boggling apology… And then… bowling?

Were these people blind? Or was the concept of Xander having paired up with the English vampire just so bizarre to them that it was incapable of penetrating their minds, even Willow's? She'd mentioned a 'friend' who might be in a similar situation to their own, and it had to be Xander, but obviously Willow had no clue _who_ Xander might be in that situation _with_. _Come on! I mean, Xander had his eyes glued to Spike's butt for ten frames, honey._ Though granted Willow might not have noticed it, hers having been glued to Tara's, which still sent a strange thrill of pleasure through the blonde, to be desired like that by the beautiful, intelligent redhead with the heart as big as she was tiny.

Xander and Spike, though… Buffy had been in love with a vampire, why was it so strange that Xander might be? Or vice versa? Tara shook her head, very slightly. Their business, their secret. Various and sundry gods knew she had enough of her own.

*****

Spike shoved clothes from the top of the dryer into Xander's four foot long army-surplus duffel bag. And who was going to have to carry _this_ little gem, eh? The bloke with the vampiric super-strength. So the question of the day was, should he pack all of Xander's Magnum-P.I.-wear, and then conveniently _lose_ the bag, or pack none of it, and conveniently burn down the basement on the way out? Gazing briefly at a red and blue patterned shirt with long-tailed parrots doing what he suspected were obscene things on it, he decided on the former, since the latter would undoubtedly set off his chip, what with the boy's parents still being upstairs. That was assuming the basement would burn; being a sort of anteroom to Hell, it was probably flame-retardant.

"What about Queen?" he suggested absently, recalling the ongoing debate about what to label that particular sexual experience, aside from sincerely mind-blowing. _But not vampire-blowing... So much for the lolly-licking fantasy. Oh well. Not complaining._

"Excuse me?" Xander responded in confusion, turning around from the trash bin where he had just dumped the corpse of his disco ball. "I'm still coming to terms with 'bi,' thank you."

Spike rolled his eyes as he continued to stuff hideous Xander-wear into the duffel bag, setting aside the boy's more reasonable fashion choices to go into a second container that he'd make sure survived the weekend. Bi. Queen. Gay. Right, thank you, teenage human insecurities. "Queen, as in Freddie Mercury, dolt."

"Oh. I see a little silhouetto of a man..." Xander sang in falsetto. "Well, it wasn't Bohemian Rhapsody sex. Maybe something from the 'Highlander' soundtrack, though. Kind of Magic?"

Spike stopped packing. Which probably wasn't a good thing, because the afternoon was moving on towards evening, and they still didn't actually have a place to stay, as far as _he_ knew.

"You realize we just agreed on a musical group. Would you mind goin' outside and checking to see if the Hellmouth's frozen over?"

"Pack, funny vampire. Yes, I like Queen. You like Queen. Be still my beating heart."

"Packing, O Lord and Master, and my unbeating heart wants to know whether we're sleeping in an alleyway or a crypt tonight. Need to know what sort of jim-jams to pack, after all." Motel, maybe? With Magic Fingers? Spike _liked_ Magic Fingers. Granted, most of the motels Xander could afford to spend five nights in, while they might have Magic Fingers, would make sleeping in a crypt look like the bloody Ritz Carlton.

"You don't _wear_ jim-jams. Though you'd damn well better wear _something_ if we're spending the weekend at Giles' place," Xander replied, and Spike's unbeating heart did a double-flip-flop down the snakes-and-ladders slide.

Giles? Five days with Xander in Rupert's little condo? What were they going to do, shag in the bathtub? Which was actually not a bad idea, and he recalled Xander's suggestion of a few days ago regarding filling a big tub with chocolate milk... Only, if Spike had his way, it would be warm cocoa, with little marshmallows in it, and if they could chase Rupes out for the night... _Who exactly's nineteen, here, Spike?_ he chided himself. Sex, sex, sex... to the tune of Spam, Spam, Spam, a la Monty Python... Right. Spam was certainly a non-sexy thought, guaranteed to start him packing again.

"Er... I'm sure he'll put you up, luv, but I wasn't exactly on company manners last time we were there. What makes you think he'll want my sorry arse around for five days?" And should they pack the microwave and the telly? How destructive _were_ the invading Harrises? On the scale of, say, the vampire crusade of Saint Vigeous versus invading Huns versus invading Jehovah's Witnesses.

"Like you _ever_ are? I kinda thought we'd bribe him. Stop by the import grocery on 5th and bring him lots of English goodies. Not quite as expensive as a motel room for five days." Xander disappeared up the steps to the outside, taking out the trash, and Spike took the opportunity to move the canvas bag of weapony toys to the 'going-with' pile. Obviously they couldn't leave sharp objects around for the mentally incompetent to stumble over.

"Weapons..." Xander said as he came back down the stairs.

"Check," replied Spike. _Good boy. I'm so proud!_

"Clothes?"

"Check and double check. Yours, mine, an' ours."

Xander shot him a funny look. "Ours? We have clothes that are _ours_ ?"

"Just an expression, pet. Your entire bloody wardrobe, and my two black shirts and one extra pair of denims. You'd think, with the amount of gear you have, at least _some_ of it wouldn't give a colorblind monkey epileptic fits. Can't we leave the odd shirt behind? Or _all_ of your odd shirts, preferably."

"My cousins have grabby hands, and less brains than your average colorblind monkey, and I _don't_ want them messing with my clothes. Especially Terry-- she's weird that way." This in a voice muffled by the fact that Xander had his head shoved into one of the utility cupboards.

She? Spike shook off the question about why _she'd_ be sharing a bed with Jim and Rob the Wonder Weasel. Kinky sex was one thing, but between Harrises, present company excepted? Apparently there were things that could make even a vampire go 'eew.' He sighed, and stuffed the last of the clean laundry into the bag. Wonderful. An extended holiday with Rupert Giles. They could have a jolly little time, complete with sing-songs, comforting the Watcher through his raging mid-life crisis, and no bloody sex for _five_ days. Five excruciating days filled with the joy of no sex. Forget the fact that, post-chip and pre-Xander, he'd not had a great deal of it once his demon-killing reputation spread through Sunnydale's vamp society. Being hard-up was one thing; stuck in a one-room flat with your lover three feet away and unable to lay a finger on him for fear of getting your backside staked (so to speak) was another. Lovely. At best, he and Rupert could argue football for five days.

Xander had returned to the land of the living after padlocking the cupboard that contained most of his comic books and Star Trek models and other geeky things he probably hoped Spike hadn't already discovered. Months too late for that… leave a bored vampire alone in your basement with nothing to do but housework, and what do you think he'll do, eh? Hell, he'd read half the way through Xander's 'X-Men' collection by the end of January.

Final catalogue:"Weapons, clothes, bloodbag cooler, razor, toothbrush... Y'know, you don't have a toothbrush, Spike."

Apparently this was an item of some concern? He had hairgel, lube, and killer cheekbones; who needed a toothbrush? "Nope. Come up pearly white every time you switch back from fangs. Just another little selling point for the vampire lifestyle."

"I'll keep it in mind, thanks." Xander surveyed the room, hands on hips. "I think that's actually _it_."

Spike gave him a smirk of mammoth proportions. "Might want to empty the drawer under the telly, luv."

It was a genuine pleasure to watch Xander's face go from tan to white to red in under twenty-five seconds, as he visibly contemplated the picture of his relatives finding that little stash of (sadly vanilla) fun. Not much of the super-kinky in there (yet), unfortunately, but Spike got a bit of a jolly off the idea of some random Harris trying to figure out why Xander had four flavors of lube and a pair of handcuffs in his room. Then there was the fact that the whole place smelled like sex and chocolate (and mildew, still) , but maybe that was just Spike and his sensitive nose.

*****

The girls were curled up on the sofa, all three of them, and Giles was beginning to suspect that Murphy and his bloody Law had slipped in the unlocked door when he wasn't looking. Two hours later and no sign of Joyce Summers, who had now been volunteered by her daughter to run the witches back to Tara's dorm room to pick up the animals, before the Summers women disappeared into the wilds of Santa Barbara. Which meant no sign of his three visitors leaving so that he could have a quiet nervous breakdown alone.

"I talked to Cordelia a few days ago," Willow was saying.

"Yeah? How's everything in good old L.A.?" Buffy replied with badly disguised interest.

"I told you their office got blown up, right? Apparently the police have just now opened the place up for the tenants to try to salvage anything of theirs they can dig out. Since for...them, that means..."

"Weapons, weapons, books, and more weapons. I know Angel." It seemed to be getting easier for Buffy to mention him without the past crossing her face like a dark cloud, and Giles was glad for that. He'd no love for the vampire, good though Angel's intent might be when in possession of his soul, but Buffy did, and would always. The fact that she could speak of him with humor meant she was healing, and that was, as Buffy would say, 'of the good.'

"Yeah. Cordy sort of put out an open invitation to us, if anybody wants to go down there this weekend and help them move stuff. _That_ was a weird conversation. Like one of those bad Kung Fu movies. Her voice said 'Come renew old friendships,' but somehow I was seeing her lips say 'Come be cheap, nay, free, manual labor, and I'll throw in a fashion critique.' Yes, I know I couldn't see her lips. It's just a whole artsy metaphor. Run with it."

To Tara, Willow explained, "Cordelia once told me that I wasn't a fashion victim. I thought it was a compliment until she pointed out that fashion didn't _care_ enough about me to actively hurt me. It was actually one of the sweeter things she said to me in high school."

"Such a pity we all have plans for the weekend," Giles put in with a grimace. "Just when I was so looking forward to renewing my old friendship with Wesley Wyndam-Pryce."

Willow gave him a _look_. An 'I'm the Mummy and you'd best behave yourself' look, and where on earth had she learned _that_ ? "Be nice, Giles. He came through in the end, no matter if he was a big doofus in the beginning. And the middle. And kind of at the end too. Besides, Cordy says he's really changed for the better."

Silence while the assembled people who actually knew Cordelia Chase pondered what her concept of a change for the better might be. Giles was a bit frightened, frankly.

"Cordy's kind of changed, too, from what I can tell over the phone. Niceness. And I mean _actual_ niceness, not I-want-some-help-with-my-Trig-so-I-won't-insult-you-today niceness."

"And I thought the concept of Spike bowling was a herald of this week's oncoming apocalypse," Giles said, somewhat bemused.

Wait, what was that? Murphy? And his Law? Actually knocking politely at the door? Never. Perhaps it was, against all hope, Joyce Summers, come to take the children away? No. He couldn't be so lucky. He opened the door to greet a black leather trenchcoat with a large grocery bag for a head. Unsure whether this was some new sort of Hellmouth monster, or merely a sign of his incipient insanity, Giles stared at it for a moment.

"You going to take this, mate, or do I drop it where I stand?" came a familiar north London voice. Ahh, apparently the grocery bag monster had swallowed Spike.

Alright, he knew full well it was Spike holding a grocery bag, but he could always fantasize for a moment... He took the heavy bag from Spike's hands, revealing a surly-looking vampire and a rather chipper Xander standing behind him, carrying two more bags.

"Okay, Deadboy Junior, you gonna move your deceased butt, or do the goodies and I have to stay outside?" Xander gave Spike a wee shove, and the vampire turned to shoot him a glare, before moving past Giles and into the well-lit room. "I come bearing gifts!" Xander added, somewhere between manic cheeriness and a strange desperation.

Buffy looked up from the sofa and twitched her lips. "Great. You brought us Spike, the gift that keeps on giving."

Tossing himself into the armchair that Giles had just vacated, near her end of the sofa, Spike grinned at her. "Heard the rumors, have you? They're all true, luv." He picked up the newspaper lying on a nearby endtable, and opened it, hiding his face.

How Giles had survived so long without Spike's company around here, he'd never know. Now he had two _more_ friends to politely chase out of his flat. Well, one friend and one annoying, undead countryman.

"What exactly did you bring, and why?" Giles asked, and Spike grinned again. This should be fun. He put down the newspaper to watch. The ex-Watcher was looking through the first grocery bag with a combination of confusion and pleasure that rivaled the look on Xander's face when Spike had introduced him to actual Cadbury's chocolate an hour ago.

"Weetabix... thank you, though I haven't actually been able to eat it again since Spike informed me that he likes to crumble it up in his blood for _texture..._" Giles glared at him, and he smiled innocently.

"All yours, mate. I've got a new cereal hobby."

"Count Chocula," Xander supplied, trying to look disgusted. _Don't think so, boy. I know better._

Buffy, on the other hand, managed a very good 'about-to-heave' face. "And we can add that to the list of things I'll never put in my mouth again..."

"Such a list exists?" Spike asked softly, so that only she could hear him. Ooh, that look! Horrors! Chuckle.

Giles was deeper into the bag. "Marmite? Er... right. Well, I _am_ out, but what possessed you to... Right, you went shopping with Spike."

*****

Spike had never really fancied the taste of the yeast-extract himself. He did know for a fact that it made an _interesting_ lube, though, and the thought of Giles spreading it on toast brought a giggle to his lips as he and Xander stood in the little grocery place, so he'd tossed it in the cart. Oh, c'mon, get to the good stuff, already!

*****

Willow was studying Xander, who looked like he'd eaten _way_ too much chocolate in the very recent past. Hyper and grinning, he was watching Giles go through the grocery bag like he had something riding on the whole operation. Good, she supposed. Grinning meant that _this_ chocolate binge had been of the innocent Xander-the-addict variety, and not the drown-your-sorrows kind he sometimes fell into. Whatever had been going on with him and Mr. Unidentified Foot Man, it didn't seem to be getting him down at the moment. Still, what's a nosy-butt to do, but watch and wait?

*****

"Licorice allsorts? Jelly Babies? Toffees? Trust you to try to put me into hyperglycemic shock," Giles muttered at Spike, but his mouth was watering. Sugar fix, anyone?

"You haven't looked in the _next_ bag yet," Spike replied.

_Why am I salivating over food products just because they come from the Motherland?_ Giles asked himself. _And do I trust Spike not to have done something nasty to them?_ Xander had bought them, though, so that shouldn't be an issue. And _why_ had Xander brought him a cornucopia of expensive British imports? Even through his schoolboy-like curiosity at what might be in this equivalent of a Christmas hamper, Giles had a sinking feeling, a little voice that was shouting 'Your weekend is about to be buggered six ways from Sunday...' at the top of its lungs.

Still, in the aforementioned next bag, there was... chocolate. Real chocolate. Dairy Milk. Flake. Timeout. Things that said 'Cadbury' on them, and actually meant it. Four milk chocolate Aero bars, and three orange. (And six empty Aero wrappers, which went a long way towards explaining Xander's condition.) Was there... Yes. There was. _Dark_ chocolate. Velvet Dream bars, with the cream in the center. Somewhere toward the bottom, there was a lone Violet Crumble...

"Giles?" Xander was saying something. What was it again? "You're kind of drooling, there."

*****

_He shoots, he scores! The crowd goes wild, hoisting Xander Harris onto their shoulders and carrying him off the court shouting his name... scantily clad cheerleaders chasing after him, throwing their underwear..._ Which was being caught and fondled by an amused Spike, of course. What, he couldn't even keep the vampire out of his innocent hormonal fantasies? Apparently not.

Still, Giles seemed to be entranced by the chocolate, which was a _good_ thing for Xander's plan to wheedle a place for both him _and_ Spike to stay for the long weekend. Giles was almost as zoned-out as Spike had been by the rows on rows of candy, when they'd been standing in Bassett's Imports. Spike took one look at what he described as _proper_ chocolate, and his eyes glazed over. Xander had actually had time to sneak off to the shop next door, pick up a sappy little anniversary present for Spike, and return to find him _still_ staring at the chocolate oranges.

He didn't quite get what the big deal was... chocolate was chocolate. Perfect, and how could one kind be better than another? Until they got back out to the car, and Spike had unwrapped one of the Aero bars. Xander, thinking merely _Hot Damn! Chocolate!_, had reached for the half that Spike held out in his hand, but Spike had snatched it away.

"Leave off! You need to be taught a lesson!"

"Here?" Xander had asked, thinking dire thoughts about Spike's concept of teaching him a lesson, and whether it could be done in public without being arrested. Whether it might be worth the risk of being arrested. How he would explain the situation when Giles came down to the station to bail them out... _Um... Spike was just... That is... You love me, right Giles?_

"Whelp! Pay attention! This is chocolate, here. You wanna wander off somewhere when the Watcher's telling you about which sorts of demons like to eat Slayer entrails for breakfast, be my guest, but this is important."

His eyes had snapped back to Spike's. "Okayyyyy...?"

"Smell it."

One eyebrow raised, and wasn't he glad he'd finally learned that trick, Xander had sniffed at the pockmarked chocolate bar in Spike's hand... and fallen. No, not in love, not with chocolate-- that affair had been going on most of his life. He'd fallen _into_ the chocolate. The rich, creamy scent had sucked his nose down to Spike's hand, and he was reasonably sure that he'd actually tumbled into one of the little holes in the bar, so that he was surrounded by chocolate on all sides, with the parking-lot lights a dim memory at the end of a long, sweet brown tunnel. No Hershey bar ever smelled like this, no Three Musketeers. Nothing that he'd ever picked up in the Food Mart check-out lane could have prepared him for this smell... and then Spike took it away, the bastard, and sat there in the car grinning at him.

"Lesson learned?"

"Hummeda, hummeda... urp... "

"I'll take that as a yes." And Spike broke off a tiny piece, putting it into Xander's mouth. If the _smell_ had been orgasmic, the _taste_ was…

"That was…kinda like a lap dance for my tongue," floated out of Xander's lips, and Spike, with a pleased snort, had reached into his duster pocket, pulled out a black notebook, and written something down. _Spike has a Little Black Book? And he just wrote something about me in it? Be still my heart._

Then, as Xander put the car in gear and drove towards Giles' place, Spike had slowly fed him little pieces of God knew how many Aero bars, letting him lick those cool fingers even though there wasn't really any melted chocolate left on them. He'd always thought the M&amp;M's people were lying when they claimed that the chocolate would melt in your mouth, not in your hand... it had always melted in _Xander's_ hands. Not those room-temperature Spike-fingers, though, which smelled like chocolate and tasted like the wind off the ocean.

A block away from Giles' condo court, Spike had motioned him over to the side of the road, a dark stretch between two widely-set streetlamps, and kissed every last bit of chocolate off his lips and tongue. Which was another benefit to shared chocoholism, Xander decided happily. Who needed a 12-step program when you had a fellow addict who could kiss like that? _I admit that I am powerless over my craving for Spike... God grant me the serenity to deal with the fact that he's an infuriating, smirky, utterly demented pervert with more stamina than me, the courage to someday tell him I think I'm falling in love with him, and the wisdom to keep my mouth shut when I have insane thoughts like that last one..._

And look. Giles had made it to the last bag.

*****

What exactly _was_ Giles drooling over? It was preying on Buffy's mind, and she got up to go over to the counter and peek into that second bag of groceries.

Ooh…chocolate. At least, she assumed from the wrappers that it was chocolate. _Tons_ of chocolate. Good Xander. Nice Xander. Bestest friend Xander. She inserted an arm into that bag, and was promptly smacked for her trouble.

"Mine!" Giles announced with a five year old's possessiveness. What the heck? Had he been eating evil band candy again? After a second, normal, sane Giles made an appearance. "That is… well look, it's English chocolate. It might be a bit too much for you lot to handle."

Grr. _Bad Watcher. It's not nice to keep chocolate from your Slayer. _She turned her best puppy-dog eyes on him, and at last he relented.

"One. One Dairy Milk for each of you." The words were barely out of his mouth before Buffy's hands were in that bag, pulling out the blue-wrappered bars and tossing one each to Willow and Tara on the couch.

When she made as if to hand one to Xander, Spike said calmly from his chair, "If you give that boy one more piece of anything with caffeine or sugar in it, I'll personally gut you, chip or no chip. Look at 'im."

Much as Buffy hated admitting the Bleached Wonder was right, Xander _was_ a little wired. Which was like saying that Spike was a little dead, or Willow was a little smart, or Giles was a little fascinated by whatever he was pulling out of the third bag.

"Good God…" he breathed, holding up a bottle of something light colored, with a blue label on it. Whatever it was, it was 8.4 percent something, blazoned proudly on the label at the neck. "I didn't think they carried this."

"Booze?" Buffy said as she returned to the couch and bit into the sweetest piece of chocolate she had _ever_ tasted. "You bought him _booze_, Xander? Somebody besides Jack the evil bartender actually accepted your fake I.D.? "

*****

"_I_ bought him booze, thank you," Spike put in, hoping to secure his welcome. _Why_ exactly was he hoping to secure his welcome for five sex-free days, again? Oh, because the alternative was holing up in a crypt and having Xander bitch at him about how creepy it was, as he had when Spike put it forward as a serious suggestion. Which might very well mean five sex-free days anyway. Giles was giving him a look halfway between grateful and perplexed.

"You bought me… this? In God's name, why?" Giles asked, still staring at the bottle of Diamond White like it was going to evaporate in his hands. If it did, there were seven more in the bag, at least one of which was earmarked for a certain cider-loving vampire. Now if Xander could just keep his mouth shut about the Woodpecker… It wasn't Spike's fault he got a titch nostalgic for a drink that was the cidery equivalent of a Shirley Temple. It was Dru's favorite drink, besides the obvious. _Thought they put real woodpeckers in it, poor thing, and nothin' I could say would change 'er mind…_ No shame in a little wallowing in nostalgia, but if Rupes got hold of that information, he'd never stop taking the mickey.

"Thought if I got you pissed, you might not notice the Twit and me stoppin' over for the week. Mr. an' Missus Twit have invited all the outlying Twits for a holiday hoedown, and chucked us out of the crypt. "

*****

_Oh, so subtle, Spike._ Xander groaned inwardly. Oh yeah, _that_ was the way to do it. And the look on Giles' face. Like the last thing in the world he wanted was to be saddled with Laurel and Hardy as houseguests.

*****

_Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha… shouted Murphy in Giles' mind. That was where the bugger had got to._ One weekend with Olivia, one chance to try to make something of whatever long-distance…something…they had, blown. He couldn't turn Xander away like the boy's idiot parents had. As for Spike… Xander obviously had a soft spot _In the head?_ for the vampire these days, and it hardly mattered. Living or dead, one guest or two, there went any shot of putting his bed to any use but the obvious one this weekend.

"Xander, of course you can stay…" but Xander was tugging him down the hall towards the bathroom.

"Is this going to be one of _those_ conversations?" Giles asked with a bit of amusement as he leaned on the inside of the bathroom door.

*****

_Those_ conver… Oh. Xander colored. _That_ conversation. Hysterical laughter bubbled up from his chest, but he swallowed it down. _Oh, so past 'I've been kissed by a boy and I liked it, what do I do?'_

Xander shook his head. "No. Not really. Just… you've got plans, don't you." It wasn't really a question.

*****

Giles nodded slowly. "I did, but they can always change. I told you once you were always welcome, and that's not rescinded just because it's not the best of timing for either of us." The look on the boy's face, as if he really thought he'd be turned away at the door.

"No. If you've got a big weekend of _lur-ur-ur-urve_ planned," Xander gave him a grin, "I'm not gonna horn in on it, and I'm definitely not gonna subject you and whoever to five days of 'Passions' and vampire whining. Got any suggestions as to where we _should_ run for cover?"

Any suggestions… a diabolical plan, and Giles didn't have many of those, began to form in his mind. He really did owe Spike for vamping out on Olivia while she was brushing her teeth the last morning of her December visit, causing her to scream and then complain that Giles' idea of houseguests left something to be desired. "How would you feel about seeing Angel again?"

*****

Urk? Angel? Oddly enough, Xander had mixed emotions about the idea. He'd come to realize, in the past few weeks, that he might owe Angel just a _bit_ of an apology for treating him like shit just because Buffy was in love with him. _And because he's tall and dark and buff and why does it seem more like repression and less like jealousy at this point? Sleep with Spike and suddenly everything that walketh on land stirreth the Xander-pants?_ His unsouled version had verily and forsooth treated them like less than shit, to the point of murdering Giles' girlfriend…but that hadn't been Angel, and Xander had known _that_ since long before Spike-as-eye-opener had smirked his way into the basement.

Still… The guy just got on his nerves. Which was actually a pretty good reason to go see him, if you were unemployed, in a cruddy mood, and itching to take it out on somebody you didn't have to see every day of your normal life. Plus he had a few things he might need to say to Cordy, too.

Xander's eyes narrowed, and then lit up. "Tell me more…"

*****

"Your roots are showing," Buffy said as she leaned across Spike to steal the newspaper he wasn't reading anyway. He put one hand reflexively to his hairline, and grimaced at her.

Honk! From outside, and she looked up.

"Yours too, Buffy-Jo. Looks like your momma done brought the trailer to pick y'all up…" Spike drawled in a horrible attempt at redneck.

"What is it with you and my mother?" she asked, gathering up her things, and motioning the other two girls to follow her to the door.

Nothing, actually. He rather liked Joyce. She gave him chocolate, for one thing, and she had the patience to put up with Buffy the Bitch for nearly two decades. A bit on the clueless side, but who in this godforsaken burg wasn't? She was pretty much on the 'Won't Kill You As Long As You Don't Get In My Way' list, even before Xander had unwittingly buggered up the whole system.

"We have a love-hate relationship. She loves you, I hate you." He snatched the abandoned newspaper back, and turned to the international sports pages, as the girls filed out the door.

"Bye, Spike…" Willow called, and he gave her a wink.

*****

"So, Cordy'll put us up in exchange for helping them move stuff into her apartment? Sounds like a deal to me. Plus I get to subject Spike to Angel. Or Angel to Spike. Or both. Cool…" So maybe he was a little chocolate-high, but suddenly the idea of getting the hell out of Sunnydale was sounding better and better to Xander.

A thought. More of them seemed to be cropping up these days… maybe because his head was filled with such good fertilizer when Spike was around.

"Hey Giles…"

*****

Giles sensed somehow that this suddenly _had_ morphed into one of _those_ conversations, while he was trying to puzzle out whether he'd just done a horrible thing to Angel and his crew. "Yes…"

"What do you know about Glaistig?"

"Glaistig, as in the water-fey?" he asked with a frown. "You're not… that is to say…" He took the plunge, which was a fairly appropriate metaphor in this case. "This fellow you mentioned before…"

Xander smiled at him, somewhere between embarrassed and mature, which was a truly heartening sight to see. "The one with the kissing, yeah."

"Yes. He's not a Glaistig, is he? They're Unseelie fey…" Blank look. "Water fairies. Dark sorts, mildly vampiric. Dangerous, Xander. They don't have any respect for humans, and they'll play with you if they can. If you've got caught up with one of them…"

And Xander was… laughing. Leaning against the bathtub and just laughing his heart out. Wheezing, almost. What, Watcher information wasn't good enough for him? He needed Rupert-Giles-tells-it-from-experience? That would be hard to come by… Unseelie fairies were one of the several types of lovers Giles hadn't made it around to in his younger and stupider days. _Several? I can narrow it down to several? Yes, that's something to write home about._

*****

"No…" Xander gasped. "At least I'm pretty sure he's not a fairy. In that sense. No wings, no magic wand…" Other than the obvious…

Giles gave him a stern look. "They're not pixies, Xander. They look quite a bit like humans. Skin a bit iridescent, sharp teeth, tend towards dark hair… Hang about in lakes and streams, mostly."

"No… I know you didn't mean _fairy_ fairies. It was just the mental picture… " Xander got himself under control. Sharp teeth, well, yeah… "No. He's not a Glaistig. I actually meant what do you know about the language. Specifically, poetry."

*****

Poetry? _Xander_ was asking about poetry? Glaistig poetry? For about the fifteenth time today, Giles was reasonably sure he'd either lost his mind or… No, there really wasn't any alternative choice. Complete mental breakdown was the answer, he was sure of it. Or maybe Xander had lost his mind. Or both of them. That was certainly an option.

"They don't write poetry. They don't write anything as a matter of fact-- it's a little difficult to develop a written language when you live underwater most of the time. But they definitely don't even compose poetry. They tend to think art is beneath them. Come to think of it, they think everything is beneath them." Like a twenty year old idiot with a guitar sitting by the side of a stream in Sussex, trying to impress the silvery bird with the translucent knockers, who'd laughed at him and dissolved back into a splash of water… Hadn't made it around to them, but not for lack of trying.

"That's what I thought. He was shitting me. As usual."

"Problems?"

"No. He just said something to me, in what he said was Glaistig, and of course it wasn't really poetry, and of course there's no written language so I can't look it up, and fate barfs in Xander's Happy Meal and laughs..." Rueful smile.

Nobody was going to mess about with his children, Giles thought in a bit of lingering insanity. Or maybe that was the sanest part of him. "Just because they don't have a written language doesn't mean that no one's ever transcribed it. If you can tell me what he said, I'll see what I can find out."

Xander's eyes widened. He was willing to look something up himself, if there was a nice neat Glaistig-To-English Dictionary lying around, but let Giles know what Spike had said, when he didn't even know? Knowing Spike and his psychotic mouth? It all came down to how much he trusted Giles… Who had accepted him without fail, forgiven him when he'd done the stupidest shit imaginable, like that infamous Valentine's Day love spell… Been mad at him, but never dismissed him, never thrown him out, never laughed at him except in sincere amusement… And was looking at him now with grey-green eyes so full of concern that it actually hurt to see them. To know that his own father hadn't worn that look in Xander's entire life, and booze and middle-age and living with Dad had erased it from his mother's face more years ago than he could count.

"I didn't get it all, but I do remember this much: lye-day-lay-lays… nay… dole…say-lay-reen bee, day-heel. Something like that. If that's even right. There was a lot more, but… oh, yeah, at the end, it was 'Say-lye-sye nay.' "

Giles had a little notebook too. Whaddya know. Of course, his was in his front pocket where everybody could see it, and was probably for jotting down important omens and world-saving grocery lists. The Watcher   --_Ex-Watcher my ass. What the hell have the Watcher's Council been doing to save the world lately, huh? _\--  




Giles folded up the notebook and tucked it away. "I'll take a look through my library. I'm not sure if I have any Glaistig materials on hand, so it may take a while, but I'll do my best."

"Thanks, G-Man."

Another stern look, but he wasn't going to get an apology. Nope. Nope, not from Xander the Brave… "Sorry."

"Hmm. Yes. You're sure this fellow doesn't have goat's feet?"

Snicker. "Goat's feet?" Nope. Fangs, check. Fine ass, check. Ticklish shins, check. Goat's feet? No.

*****

"Okay, Chipped Dip. We're outta here." Xander returned to the room, Giles in tow, and Spike tossed the paper aside. Football scores at the end of June? What had he been thinking?

"You two have a nice confab, then? Decide who's sleeping where? 'Cos I'm not sharing with the whelp. I'd sooner snuggle up to you," he shot at Giles with a flutter of his eyelashes.

"That won't be necessary," his fellow Englishman assured him drily. "Thank God."

"Yeah. 'Outta here' is a phrase we use in America to mean 'leaving.' As in you getting your cold dead ass out of that chair and following me out the door."

"You got a better place for us to stay, brat?"

"Trust in me, and I shall lead the way…" Xander replied, assuming a saintly pose and casting his eyes Heavenward. "Now haul ass."

As they headed out the door, Spike shaking his head in confusion, Giles leaned close to him. "Woodpecker?" the retired librarian whispered into his ear with a chuckle.

Grr. "Sod off."

He could hear the laughter all the way out to the car.

*****

"Hello? Oh, Olivia luv. Nothing, really, just having a relaxing evening at home, waiting for your call. Nothing exciting going on at all. Touchdown in two hours? So you're what, over the ocean at the moment? Must be lovely. Er… How do you feel about rats?"

"Liv? Hello?"

*****

Luckily for the residents of Sunnydale, and especially the patrons of Bob's Gas n' Go, Xander waited until they were about two miles out of town to inform Spike as to where they were actually going. Luckily for Xander, Spike had a little computer chip in his head that prevented him from beating the crap out of human-type people who informed him that he'd be spending the weekend with his much-loved sire. Unluckily for Xander, since Spike couldn't do anything to him physically (that he didn't like), the vampire decided to start in on the damn tattoo again, the one Xander had stuck on Spike's ass last night, and kind of hoped he'd forgotten about.

He lounged in the back seat of the Chevy, feet propped on the headrest in front of him, Xander's headrest, kicking it every so often as he pontificated on what it might be, how unfair it was that he couldn't see it in the mirror, and how the poor vampire was just a victim of hard times, abused by the government, forced to service his landlord in exchange for a roof over his head…

Five miles later, Xander was sincerely wishing Spike was young enough to fully appreciate the significance of the phrase, "Don't make me have to pull this car over and come back there…"

 


End file.
